


Fata Morgana

by FrostbitePanda



Series: Happy Citadel [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Drabble-ish?, Established Relationship, F/M, How does it work?, Immortal?Max, Mythic!Max, One Shot, Time - Freeform, Wasteland Magic, Wasteland Myths, character exploration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 08:04:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostbitePanda/pseuds/FrostbitePanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He felt the long neglected twinge of disbelief and derision at the mention of ‘spirits’, as if he possessed a more superior well of knowledge to draw from to explain the word away. But the Wasteland had buried that well along with all the others long ago. Who was he now to say?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fata Morgana

They ride out at midnight.

The sand rolls around them like tidal waters-- ancient and well-forgotten. She shifts and sighs in the passenger seat like a hungry panther with no prey on the horizon.

He rolls his shoulders, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. His car was a solitary habitat-- and he was feeling uneasy at how normal it felt to have the long lines of her body folded up next to him. How natural it seemed to be able to snatch a glimpse of her gazing out into the sheet of night-washed dunes as the road hummed them away from everything.

He had walked into her room earlier that day to say goodbye, to shrug in the face of her question of when he would be back, to kiss her before leaving those three spires in his rearview and trying not to think of it.

But she had hefted a bag on her shoulder and had asked him where they were going.

“Nowhere,” he had answered and she had smiled so conspiratorially he almost wanted to laugh.

+++

They make camp within the blue shade of a dune, silent and swift in the efficiency that only two wasteland nomads could ever know.

They sit cross-legged on the roof of his car after a hasty supper of Citadel bean paste and roasted millet. He has a pistol tucked in his belt and she rests her rifle over her knees. “Forthright told me that there used to be kangaroos,” Furiosa says mildly after a long silence.

Max hums in response.

She turns her head towards him, her brow knitted up in faint confusion. “What _are_ kangaroos?”

He almost laughs, but suppresses it with a shocked chuff. “Ah-- big animals… Ate uh, grass. Had big feet. Hopped around.”

She looks all the world like she doesn’t believe a word he’s spoken. “Hopped around?” She repeats.

Max nods, a small, disbelieving smile crawling over his mouth. He holds a hand over stomach. “Carried their babies in little pouches on their bellies.”

She throws her head back at that, barking a laugh. “You’re fucking with me.”

He throws a palm up. “It’s the truth.”

She laughs and so does he. It’s like unclenching a muscle, finally finding an itch that had eluded him for ages. He almost doesn’t know how to fully handle it.

Their chuckles eventually slow, and a warm, effusive silence takes hold of them. She knocks her shoulder into his and he can’t help but slide a palm onto her thigh.

“Max--” she stops and licks her lips, uncertain. He regards her curiously. “How old are you?”

He is struck by the question. It is not something he has ever really thought about-- the need to keep track of months and years having been long gone away with all the things that could mark time-- harvests and seasons and festivals. “Mm-- don’t really know,” he says quietly.

She is silent in response, not seeming to be very surprised by this admission. She had reasons to count the days-- five women to stowaway, a home to find, a respirator to rip out. She knew that not many others enjoyed such a privilege.

“Vyrie remembers the old world,” she ventures after a spell. She peers out into the night thoughtfully, as if wrangling out a riddle. “She told me she’s 67.”

Max twitches at that, bringing his hand back into his lap.

“She was nineteen when the first bombs dropped. Took a few years for it to all go to shit.” She looks over at him and she looks much too grave for his liking. “How old were you?”

Her voice is taking on an edge he does not quite know what to do with. All he knows is that it is digging into his skin like a weevil. His mouth twitches and he considers not answering her. “Twenty-two,” he finally replies, forcing himself to look her in the face.

She glances away. Education was a long dead luxury of destroyed civilizations, but simple math was the currency of the Imperator. She hangs her head, a cold, ironic smile on her face. “It’s true,” she whispers, almost to herself. He looks at her, question writ large on his brow. She looks back at him, smiles-- small and sad. “You're a spirit.”

He felt the long neglected twinge of disbelief and derision at the mention of ‘spirits’, as if he possessed a more superior well of knowledge to draw from to explain the word away. But the Wasteland had buried that well along with all the others long ago. Who was he now to say?

“There used to be stories-- back home,” she continues within a sigh. Her tone now breezy, bordering on nostalgic. “That mirages could take shape, take form. We called them ‘Fata Morgana’.”

He grunts in understanding. He knew what those were-- had been, anyway. He knew how to explain that away too-- something to do with heat and refraction-- but--

“Katie used to say that they were vengeful spirits-- people of the old world come for penance for their lost loved ones. She said they were dangerous. Not to be trusted.”

His breath flees from his lungs and his ears ring as if a gun had just blasted it's last round a few inches from his jaw. He slams his eyes shut, throat burning with a trapped scream.

“But she said there were good ones too.” She’s close to him now, he can feel her breath on his cheek and the weight of her arm on his. Her voice is soft, pliant, cool like rain. “People of the old world coming to make amends-- to help heal the world they destroyed.”

He feels like he is caught in a snare-- the more he struggles for freedom the more he tangles himself in the biting wires. She brushes a hand down the back of his neck, circles two fingers over the brand at the top of his spine and he struggles to hold back his reflex to grab her arm and run from her as fast as his spirit would allow. “She used to say that once their purpose was carried out, they were free to leave. To go back to death and sleep forever in peace.”

He looks at her then, and her face is girded in desert gold and her mouth wavers like the sand ripped over the ridge of a dune. Everything about her was the desert-- raging towers of wind and dust, blood and oil and fire-- but she had also known green, once. And so had he. 

She sighs-- as if she had just allowed herself a respite after years of running over sunrotted tarmac. “When you left-- the first time-- Vyrie reminded me about that story. And until you came back, I believed her.”

He doesn't know what to say-- doesn't know how to carry the weight of the world she carried within her. One of a wasted earth remade in her image. Patched up old bikes draped in color-- red desert stone dripping with vines. He can only reach his fingers to the base of her neck to press their brows further together-- to perhaps will their cells to exchange energy so that he may absorb some of her pain. But that was one myth not worth believing in this world.

“And every time after-- when you left. I thought ‘he won’t come back. His job is done. He’s made amends’.” She lifts her face from his, looking him in the eye and it feels like looking at the old photos of supernovae-- cosmic ruins of a mighty storm. Something he knew was there, but could never hope to fully understand. "'He won't come back,'" her voice wavers, only a little, and her eyes are bright and dark like fire-polished wood.

She breaks him open then-- unfurled like a tumbleweed tasting water for the first time in a century. 

Her voice drops to a whisper, “If you’re a spirit, why are you still here?”

He rubs a thoughtless palm up her arm and he finds he can answer that question. The ease and openness of the answer jolts him to the tips of his hair. “You.”

She laughs, sudden and bright-- the same laugh she used when he was telling her of kangaroos. “The-- uh, the girls.” He twists his mouth, the words sharp and hot in his throat. He suddenly has to spit them out like swallowed shrapnel. “Mighta-- Mighta been one of your bad ghosts,” he nods and hums approvingly at that, eyes focused on the hood of the car. He licks his lips and dares himself to look at her again, but it’s like gazing into the sun so he blinks and looks away. “But uh-- changed. Had a uh-- another purpose.”

He runs the back of his knuckles over her jaw, a reflex, but pulls his fingers away as if scalded. “Done a lot of stuff-- need a lot of mm… amends.” He shakes his head. “But uh-- you. It’s-- it was always.”

She looks carved of rock-- her eyes wide and still on him, glimmering like an oasis that surely was on the horizon. She finally reaches out her flesh hand, pulling his face close to her own, mouth dipping to his lips until she stops short. “You’re fucking with me,” she whispers, voice low and dusky and slipping into his bloodstream like a drug.

“Mm-- it’s the truth,” he rumbles before catching her tiny laugh in his mouth.

 

 

 

+++

_"Well I have sown untidy furrows across my soul_  
But I am still a coward  
Content to see my garden grow so sweet and full  
Of someone else's flowers  
Sometimes I can almost feel the power  
Sometimes I am so in love with you"  
\-- "In California" Joanna Newsom

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to explore some Vuvalini lore and play with Mythic!Max, okay?
> 
> I wrote this in one sitting while drunk and it is totally unedited, so I hope it actually makes sense. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, Vyrie (my name for the Vuvalini who held the needle in Max's arm) seems like she would have her suspicions about Max's age, as she saw first hand his very Old World medical knowledge.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Atmospheric Phenomena (The castles in the sky Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11824614) by [Owlship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship)




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